“National Library Week is an annual celebration highlighting the valuable role libraries, librarians, and library workers play in transforming lives and strengthening our communities.

“This year’s theme, Libraries = Strong Communities, illustrates how today’s libraries are at the heart of our cities, towns, schools and campuses, providing critical resources, programs and expertise. They also provide a public space where all community members, regardless of age, culture or income level, can come together to connect and learn.”

I am happy to see that many media outlets are promoting National Library Week. This year, CNN has a special story on “9 facts about librarians you probably didn’t know.” For example, did you know that 1.3 billion people visit public libraries every year, more than the 1.24 billion movie theater admissions in 2017. So why not celebrate the week by stopping into your local library and picking up a DVD or book. They are free to borrow with your card!

A big thank you goes out to the South Central Library System in Wisconsin for hosting two Efficient Librarian webinars. Jean Anderson and her team were great to work with. We had excellent attendance and the participants asked very thoughtful questions.

SCLS has posted the presentations to their continuing education web site. If you want to view a recording of the two webinars, both one hour in length, here are the links:

I’m a big fan of the British SF series, Doctor Who. In the show, an alien called The Doctor flies around the universe in a time machine called the TARDIS. While The Doctor has a deep knowledge of temporal mechanics, alas we humans have a very poor understanding of time. In fact, we often underestimate how much time tasks take to do even when we should know better.

In his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman discusses the “planning fallacy.” This fallacy occurs when someone routinely underestimates the amount of time it takes to do a task. For example, if on one occasion we got all the lights and made it to work in 20 minutes, a part of our mind now believes we can always make the trip in that time. This is despite the fact we know from our prior experience that it normally takes 30 minutes or more.

The repercussion in our daily lives is the tendency to assume we can get more done in a day than is actually possible. This typically manifests in lengthy to do lists that never get completed. A practical way to combat the planning fallacy is to make our to do lists shorter. In her book, 52 Simple Ways to Get Organized, Claire Tompkins suggests the following:

“The problem with underestimating is that you believe you have more time for those things on your list that aren’t getting done, and then you feel discouraged. Everyone’s daily to do list needs to be a lot shorter.”

She then suggests that we time our regular tasks to determine exactly how long they take. With this knowledge in hand, we can then carefully plan our day and combat the planning fallacy.

The other way to solve the problem is procure your own time machine, but that might be hard if you don’t have a Time Lord for a friend.

It is an honor and a privilege to announce that I am currently featured on Getting Things Done!

About a month ago, the GTD team reached out to me to ask if I would share my story about how I discovered the system and use it. Without any hesitation I jumped at the chance. Here is an except from the story:

“How long have you been practicing GTD?I started in 2011. I am one of those excited people who dove in head first and did a total implementation of the GTD process within the first month. One of the best support tools for the early years of practice was the 10 CD set of David Allen’s complete GTD two-day seminar. I pretty much listened to it on repeat in my car. Each time I listened, it took me deeper into the GTD process. I still dive into seminar from time to time for a refresher.”

Just a quick post to share that I have finally joined the 336 million other people using Twitter. I’m not sure yet how often I will tweet, but hopefully my 280 character correspondences will be entertaining and educational in some small capacity. I’ll continue to focus my tweets on efficiency, productivity, and library themes.

I recently came across an engaging podcast from a company called the Productivityist. According to their web site, they are:

“A company built with the quest to help people stop “doing” productive and start “being” productive through developing practical and tactical approaches to their work and lives.”

The host is Mike Vardy, the President of the company. So, what exactly is a productivityist? Mike offers us this description:

“A productivityist is a productivity enthusiast. They are someone who studies productivity, be it the tools or habits. They dive deeper into the realm than most people. Just like a comedian looks at the world differently, so does the productivityist. Productivityists, like other enthusiasts, like to go further in their craft and push boundaries. They like to explore new processes, new ideas, new ways to get things done.”

The podcast is worth a listen and it can be found on the Productivityist web site or through the Apple Podcast app. In future blog posts, I’ll explore the thoughts and ideas of some of the podcast’s unique guests.

How come every office environment seems to run in the same routine patterns? Is there any innovation out there designed to make our work lives more rewarding and enjoyable? There certainly is! I have been listening to a very entertaining podcast that explores the horizons made possible when people re-imagine the office. It is presented by Professor Adam Grant, bestselling author of Originalsand Give & Take. The podcast is called WorkLifeand it mission is as follows:

“You spend a quarter of your life at work, so shouldn’t you enjoy it? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant takes you inside some of the world’s most unusual workplaces to discover the keys to better work. Whether you’re learning how to love criticism or trust a co-worker you can’t stand, one thing’s for sure: You’ll never see your job the same way again.”

In brisk episodes of about 30 minutes in length, Grant’s podcast made for easy and inviting listening. In particular I enjoyed the episode exploring how introverts and extroverts can function successfully in the workplace, which featured an interview with Susan Cain, author of Quiet. Visit the TED website to learn more about the series and download episodes.